5

Excavating at Caughnawaga site
circa 1955-1957
South of Montreal, Quebec, Canada


Credits:
Museum of Ontario Archaeology

6

Wilf conducted further fieldwork there in the fall of 1956, uncovering evidence of the 1696 church, the Jesuit residence attached to the church, an external bake oven, rectangular houses built and occupied by Europeans, and other structures and a "traditional" longhouse built and occupied by the Mohawk. He unearthed an assemblage of over 5000 artifacts characteristic of the 1696-1719 period. Plans were made to return in the fall of 1957, but when Wilf and the Jesuits arrived they discovered a majority of the site where they had been working had been bulldozed as construction of the Seaway progressed. Today the lands where the site was located are administered by the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake. In 1999 they contacted the London Museum of Archaeology to inquire as to the whereabouts of the artifacts Wilf had found. We ascertained from Wilf's files that he had deposited the artifacts in 1957 in a small museum in a restored powder magazine on or near the site. Unfortunately the Mohawk had no knowledge of that and the present location of the artifacts is a mystery.